Reviews

Anna Mae Bullock was born in Nutbush, Tennessee in 1939. She would rise to the peak of her chosen field many years later as superstar Tina Turner. Turner - along with authors Katori Hall, Frank Ketelaar and Kees Prins - would start workshopping Tina the musical in 2016. In April 2018 Turner’s life story adapted as a musical would hit the Aldwych Theatre in the West End. Every year after, another overseas destination was added to the touring schedule.

To the average cinemagoer Ralph Fiennes will forever be Voldemort from the Harry Potter series, but he is so much more!

It was Ralph Fiennes’s mother who introduced him to his acting career. He was 8 or 9, lying atop the bunk bed he shared with his younger brother Magnus, when he asked her to tell him a story. The tale she chose was Hamlet.

The title, You’re Being Dramatic, sounds like a put-down, as in ‘now you’re being dramatic…’  As in, ‘Now you’re getting emotional, calm down, don’t make a scene.’  That inhibition, that fear of conflict, is the crux of Zadie Kennedy McCracken’s play.  Sometimes it might be best to be ‘dramatic’ - or not and live to regret it.

Alex Buzo’s very controversial – and prosecuted for ‘obscenity’ – two-hander Norm & Ahmed dates back to 1968.  Writer and director Nick Parsons thought to revive it and play it alongside a long-considered piece of his own: Radha & Ryan.  The aim being to compare and contrast two eras and the sorts of Australian prejudice and attendant violence – then and now.  Both plays are set at bus shelters, late at night and both involve chance encounters.